


Down the Memory Lane

by Jamie_Anya



Series: Hiddlesworth's Short Stories [7]
Category: Australian Actor RPF, British Actor RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Kids and Growing, Author Doesn't Want To Give Anything Away, Author Wants You To Cry, Chris Feels, M/M, Tom Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-09
Updated: 2014-05-09
Packaged: 2018-01-24 02:44:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1588712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jamie_Anya/pseuds/Jamie_Anya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chris recalls back his childhood memories. </p><p>Prepare your box of tissues before reading, you've been warned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Down the Memory Lane

**Author's Note:**

> Pardon my poor writing, this fic is not beta'd - English is not my first language, i'm afraid.

He ambled through the green plains of the rural countryside, hands in the pockets of his jacket as he enjoyed the soft whistling and the cool breeze. It was a long walk to his destination, but it gave him time to think and recall through his past. His past was beautiful once, but tragedy ended his childhood days. Just down the hill, he heard the familiar bleating of a crowd of sheep, the jingling of bells, the barking of a dog and the shouts of a man.

 

Pausing, he waited until the old shepherd finally noticed his arrival and gave him a wave - the old man nodded his head slightly, acknowledging his presence before resuming his work.

 

Chris huffed, it had been so long ago that he had left this place. This nostalgia. He and his family moved into this breath-taking countryside when he was still a child, and made some friends as he stayed. But not long after that, his family had to move again - back to Australia - leaving everything behind as bitter history. And he wondered whether it was a cowardly step or not. For years, his parents told him not to come back here but a certain face and the giggles that he loved to hear haunted him in his sleep. The dreams told him, the only way to be forgiven was to go back and face his past.

 

Solve the puzzle, once and for all.

 

And the course of his childhood ended miserably, with loneliness and tears.

 

The sky had darkened and was rumbling by the time Chris spotted the familiar mansion - it had aged terribly now, bare and abandoned in the middle of nowhere. He remembered, the mansion used to glow beautifully before. Vines had crawled all over the stony walls, twining along the rails, the fence and the gate, and the colourful flood of flowers Chris used to glance at had long died. The trees were hollow, and dried. Darkened and eerie.

 

He slipped out from the hood of his slim sweatshirt beneath his jacket, revealing a beanie hiding all of his mess of dirty-blond hair as he walked up the few steps toward the wrecked front door. Chris tested the door handle, and found out that it was unlocked - perhaps the lock had rusted. Letting himself in, he took the time to scan the place through. Passing the kitchen and the dining, the sitting and the living room, the study, the library and the foyer - the house was left empty.

 

_'C'mon! Let's play!'_

 

Grunting, he took out a torch light from his backpack and shuffled up the crooked stairs. There was no electricity, no light, no life. The railings were dusted, sprinkles of tiny particles float in the cold air and glittered from the glaring light of his torch. Looking sideways of the hallway of the second-floor, the place was dangerously dark. But he felt no sense of fear. The mansion was once his 'home' after all.

 

Walking up the third-floor, he turned to his left and calmly entered the farthest room despite the uneasy chills that crawled up his spine. The room he was in, was the room that started all of his clouded memories. He was unconsciously drawn to reside in this room for the night, escaping the heaviness of the rain outside and the stinging cold of the darkness. Dropping his backpack down to the wooden floor, Chris pulled out a nearby drawer as he searched for something he considered as a necessity for the cold. Finding a few sticks of candles, he proceeded to lit the room up, rolling and strewing his sleeping bag at one corner before he decided to have a rest. Sitting on the bits of easing comfort of his sleeping bag, he shed out of his jacket and took off his beanie - leaning his back against the wall with a long sigh.

 

_'I'm always alone. But i'm not afraid.'_

 

His finger twitched, the voice from his distant memories came back to him after so many years.

 

"...Why aren't you afraid?" Chris mumbled, perhaps to himself, "Why aren't we afraid...?"

 

Cerulean eyes strayed to the still fire of the lit candle near him, and he started to wonder - what would happen next? How should he be forgiven? How long should he wait in this dreadful desolation?

 

Until the fire of the candle flickered from the sudden breeze, and Chris fell unconscious - drifting into a disquieting sleep.

 

*

 

"We were so young back then, weren't we?"

 

Chris stirred awake, opening his tired eyes and squinted at the sudden glare of the sun above him. The voice woke him up, sounded so different. He realised that he was no longer in the empty room, he was resting against a blanket strewn over the grass as he spotted a figure sitting near - watching the clouds floating above. There was a sense of familiarity emitting from this man with blond curls, the white hoodie t-shirt that seemed to hang loosely on his body frame and the clinks of rose gold and silver bracelet on his wrist.

 

He'd seen that somewhere before. But where?

 

"The sky's beautiful here, isn't it?" the man asked him, a tinge of mirth in his voice - and the oh-so, gentlemanly English accent.

 

Chris looked up, and cleared his throat, "...It is."

 

He didn't know where he was, these plains were not exactly the view that he remembered on walking nor from the scenes of his past. Was this a part of his dream? But why did it feel so excruciatingly real?

 

"Where am i...?" Chris murmured as he sat up on the blanket, looking hesitantly at the mourning sight of the quiet man.

 

His head lowered down from the blue skies to gaze on the mounting hills in front of them, glancing at Chris over his shoulder and said, "A place where someone can be forgiven."

 

Studying the plains, he found nothing. No trees, no civilisation. Just the colour green and blue with the darkened mountains as its background. How empty and sad it looked despite the supposedly cheery atmosphere the brightness of day had depicted. Chris wanted to be forgiven by the boy from his past, it was extremely exhausting to run away and be a coward. And he would accept every sacrifice that he must do no matter how painful it would be, he just wanted to be forgiven.

 

Somewhere in this silence, the man was waiting for him to tell him his story.

 

"...It was 18 years ago. I befriended the landlord's son, and we would spend our summer messing things around the mansion. Just to be happy for once."

 

Chris couldn't see the expression of the man near him, nor did he know who the stranger supposed to be. But he beckoned him to continue, while looking up at the blue sky - feeling the breeze of the wind brushing against them.

 

"I was... in love with him. But i guess, i still am. We were playing hide and seek one evening, our mothers told us not to... But we did. I told him i would search for him, and it was rather ironic that i gave him a kiss that looked like farewell. Counting to hundred, i began my search. For hours and hours more, he was nowhere to be found. Despite my exhaustion, my cries, my trembling fears... Still, i couldn't find him. He was missing, gone..."

 

He breathed, calming his beating heart as he listened to the gleeful chirps of passing birds.

 

"It was by the end of that very week when we finally found him, hidden behind the walls of the sitting room... Dead. They didn't know how he got there, they presumed he was 'hidden' by someone we couldn't see. But i remembered telling him of the crack on the walls, that he could get inside. And i failed of telling him that once inside, there was no turning back. He couldn't get out. Nobody could hear or see him crying. It was my fault that he died..."

 

"Did you remember his name?"

 

Chris frowned as he recalled back the name, "...Tom."

 

Then, he spotted a slight curve of a smile. It was small. And sad. The man turned his face a little but it was enough for Chris to know who he was; the glistening greyish-blue eyes were familiar, the blushes on his puffy cheeks. Chris widened his eyes, his mouth gaped slightly. It couldn't be...

 

"...We were so young back then, weren't we?"

 

Then, painful memories flashed through his mind.

 

_His innocence had long gone away in him, ever since the death of his first love. He wondered if he could open his heart for someone again, he was so young and fragile to pain. He had to move back to Australia, out to his homeland and away from the cold of the merciless winter in England. Summer was no more. Making his last round in the mansion of the crumbling family, Chris stopped at the large hole where they found the dead child. He wanted to cry._

 

_"...I'm so sorry," Chris murmured, wiping the tears that streaked down his cheeks with his palm._

 

_Slipping the rose-gold glittered with silver bracelet from his wrist, it once belonged to his grandmother and now, he decided that its next owner would be Tom. He placed the bracelet on the corner of the supposedly haunted hiding place, where Tom had laid on._

 

He spotted Tom standing a distance away from him, in this sheer darkness - he couldn't see the beautiful face that he loved. 

 

'T-Tom...' Chris stammered, taking a step closer. 

 

_It was their first kiss. He loved the blushes on Tom's puffy cheeks, and the eyes that widened in mixed delight, confusion and bliss. Brushing his lips against the other, Chris knocked their foreheads together and sighed happily, "Is this what you call first love?"_

 

_"I'm not sure. You?"_

 

_"Not sure either."_

 

'...Tom,' he called, walking a bit faster and quickened to run. 

 

_"C'mon! Let's play!"_

 

_Tom squealed, taking hold of his new friend's hand as he led him upstairs to his bedroom. They ran up the steps, laughing along as they played heroes. Mimicking airplane noises, spreading their arms wide and ran through the hallway - ignoring what the other tenants might feel. Summer made them energetic, the sun gave them strength, the crisp air and the breeze along with the blue-ness of the sky were a part of their very being as children._

 

_Resting on Tom's bed after a long day of playing outside, Chris took in on how huge Tom's bed was. "Don't you feel lonely sleeping on your own?"_

 

_Tom shrugged, lying on his side as he faced Chris with a smile, "I'm always alone. But i'm not afraid."_

 

Tom was holding his hand out for him to reach, and Chris held out. But the distance grew a lot farther. 

 

'Tom...!' Chris cried, trying to reach to the faltering hand, 'No... Don't leave me!'

 

_"I've been waiting for so many years, Chris. Now that you're here, i can finally leave in peace," Tom whispered, his head rested on Chris' broad chest as he linked his hand with his now handsome childhood friend._

 

_They had grown so much, and Tom never regretted reciprocating that adorable love so many years ago. Chris' beating heart made him feel so alive, and the breaths that showed him how wide the gap was between the living and the dead. It was saddening, he wanted to live once more. But there was nothing he could do, but to leave this beautiful world._

 

_"...You're never at fault. You're never guilty," he said, kissing Chris' lips as he sat up. Hugging his knees as he looked up the sky, the colour was nearly the same as his and Chris'. Tom recalled back his childhood memories, the summer that he spent with Chris. And chuckled, "We were so young back then, weren't we?"_

 

When he finally grasped a hold onto Tom's hand, the darkness crashed and collapsed on them to pieces.

 

"TOM...!"

 

Ripping him out from the land of the dream to reality. 

 

Chris gasped and panted as he jolted and scrambled awake. He was covered in sweat, shivering from his dream. Looking back at the candle nearby, the wax had melted to its base and the fire had long died out. It was already morning, bright and warm outside.

 

He groaned.

 

Until he realised that he was holding onto something, it was Tom's bracelet. It was still the same and beautiful as before, but there was a message carved on the inside. The wordings looked recent. Reading the three small words, a fresh tear fell from his eye, and Chris wept. He brought the bracelet to his forehead as his hands clenched around it, sniffs and whimpers filled the emptiness of the room - the emptiness of the mansion.

 

"...I love you too, Tom."


End file.
